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Carmen Laforet's novel Nada looks at the impact of war on a family. The protagonist Andrea goes to live with her extended family in Barcelona after Spain's civil war. Her extended family includes her depressed Uncle Roman, controlling aunt Angustias, abusive Uncle Juan and his mysterious wife Gloria. The family lives in a cramped apartment that betrays their middle class background.

The squalor of the apartment contrasts with the beauty Andrea finds in her friendships at the university.
Laforet uses the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War as a background to the chaos of Andrea's home life. Her extended family lives with the poverty of a destroyed country and this poverty permeates into the home's atmosphere. Laforet illustrates the family secrets through violent outbursts. Juan publicly reveals Angustinas' long-term affair with a married man while the train she is on pull away from the platform. Juan engages in fight with a stranger while discovering Gloria's part time job as a gambler. Andrea also describes the ugliness of her home life as, "I realized I could endure everything: the cold that permeated my wrong clothes, the sadness of my absolute poverty and the dull horror of the filthy." (pg 77) This contrasts with the description of her friend Ena's home, "I thought-lying in my bed-of the warm welcome I'd received from Ena's family at her house." (pg 96)
This novel feels moody and melancholy with most of the dialogue spoken in Andrea's mind. Laforet evokes Andrea's loneliness at a friend's party so clearly that the reader also feels alone in a crowded room, "I felt a wretched, useless sadness there by myself. The truth is I didn't know anyone and I felt out of touch." (pg 181)
Andrea's life isn't completely depressing and there are some light moments as well. The scenes between Andrea and Ena show a platonic affection between the young women, "Until then no one I loved had shown me so much affection and I felt gnawed by the need to give her something more than my company." (pg 52)
The main shortcoming of this novel is that it is not clear who is speaking. This forces the reader to ask if the quotes are Andrea's thoughts or other characters speaking in the open. This could be due to the novel originally written in Spanish. The novel also ends a little too abruptly and leaves some loose ends for the reader to resolve, such as what happens to Andrea at the end of the summer or the status of Gloria and Juan's violent marriage.
Nada is a beautiful and somber novel that looks at the thoughts of a young woman trying to preserve her sanity in a chaotic and violent world.

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